
Distributed Solar: The Democratizaton of Energy

Blogroll
- Earle Wilson
- Darren Wilkinson's introduction to ABC Darren Wilkinson’s introduction to approximate Bayesian computation (“ABC”). See also his post about summary statistics for ABC https://darrenjw.wordpress.com/2013/09/01/summary-stats-for-abc/
- Harvard's Project Implicit
- International Society for Bayesian Analysis (ISBA)
- Why It’s So Freaking Hard To Make A Good COVID-19 Model Five Thirty Eight’s take on why pandemic modeling is so difficult
- American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
- John Kruschke's "Dong Bayesian data analysis" blog Expanding and enhancing John’s book of same title (now in second edition!)
- Simon Wood's must-read paper on dynamic modeling of complex systems I highlighted Professor Wood’s paper in https://hypergeometric.wordpress.com/2014/12/26/struggling-with-problems-already-attacked/
- Gavin Simpson
- Ives and Dakos techniques for regime changes in series
- Gabriel's staircase
- WEAPONS OF MATH DESTRUCTION, reviews Reviews of Cathy O’Neil’s new book
- Pat's blog While it is described as “The mathematical (and other) thoughts of a (now retired) math teacher”, this is false humility, as it chronicles the present and past life and times of mathematicians in their context. Recommended.
- ggplot2 and ggfortify Plotting State Space Time Series with ggplot2 and ggfortify
- London Review of Books
- Ted Dunning
- Giant vertical monopolies for energy have stopped making sense
- Healthy Home Healthy Planet
- Bob Altemeyer on authoritarianism (via Dan Satterfield) The science behind the GOP civil war
- Mike Bloomberg, 2020 He can get progress on climate done, has the means and experts to counter the Trump and Republican digital disinformation machine, and has the experience, knowledge, and depth of experience to achieve and unify.
- "Impacts of Green New Deal energy plans on grid stability, costs, jobs, health, and climate in 143 countries" (Jacobson, Delucchi, Cameron, et al) Global warming, air pollution, and energy insecurity are three of the greatest problems facing humanity. To address these problems, we develop Green New Deal energy roadmaps for 143 countries.
- Carl Safina's blog One of the wisest on Earth
- Risk and Well-Being
- All about ENSO, and lunar tides (Paul Pukite) Historically, ENSO has been explained in terms of winds. But recently — and Dr Paul Pukite has insisted upon this for a long time — the oscillation of ENSO has been explained as a large-scale slosh due to lunar tidal forcing.
- Tony Seba Solar energy, electric vehicle, energy storage, and business disruption professor and visionary
- Peter Congdon's Bayesian statistical modeling Peter Congdon’s collection of links pertaining to his several books on Bayesian modeling
- "Consider a Flat Pond" Invited talk introducing systems thinking, by Jan Galkowski, at First Parish in Needham, UU, via Zoom
- Mertonian norms
- Slice Sampling
- South Shore Recycling Cooperative Materials management, technical assistance and networking, town advocacy, public outreach
- Hermann Scheer Hermann Scheer was a visionary, a major guy, who thought deep thoughts about energy, and its implications for humanity’s relationship with physical reality
- Flettner Rotor Bruce Yeany introduces the Flettner Rotor and related science
- Prediction vs Forecasting: Knaub “Unfortunately, ‘prediction,’ such as used in model-based survey estimation, is a term that is often subsumed under the term ‘forecasting,’ but here we show why it is important not to confuse these two terms.”
- Leadership lessons from Lao Tzu
- Earth Family Alpha Michael Osborne’s blog (former Executive at Austin Energy, now Chairman of the Electric Utility Commission for Austin, Texas)
- Tim Harford's “More or Less'' Tim Harford explains – and sometimes debunks – the numbers and statistics used in political debate, the news and everyday life
- SASB Sustainability Accounting Standards Board
- The Keeling Curve: its history History of the Keeling Curve and Charles David Keeling
- Thaddeus Stevens quotes As I get older, I admire this guy more and more
- AP Statistics: Sampling, by Michael Porinchak Twin City Schools
- The Mermaid's Tale A conversation about biological complexity and evolution, and the societal aspects of science
- Team Andrew Weinberg Walking September 8th for the Jimmy Fund!
- Number Cruncher Politics
- Charlie Kufs' "Stats With Cats" blog “You took Statistics 101. Now what?”
- NCAR AtmosNews
- OOI Data Nuggets OOI Ocean Data Lab: The Data Nuggets
- Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI)
- Quotes by Nikola Tesla Quotes by Nikola Tesla, including some of others he greatly liked.
- Dominic Cummings blog Chief advisor to the PM, United Kingdom
- Survey Methodology, Prof Ron Fricker http://faculty.nps.edu/rdfricke/
climate change
- The Sunlight Economy
- The Scientific Case for Modern Human-caused Global Warming
- Tell Utilities Solar Won't Be Killed Barry Goldwater, Jr’s campaign to push for solar expansion against monopolistic utilities, as a Republican
- The great Michael Osborne's latest opinions Michael Osborne is a genius operative and champion of solar energy. I have learned never to disregard ANYTHING he says. He is mentor of Karl Ragabo, and the genius instigator of the Texas renewable energy miracle.
- "Betting strategies on fluctuations in the transient response of greenhouse warming" By Risbey, Lewandowsky, Hunter, Monselesan: Betting against climate change on durations of 15+ years is no longer a rational proposition.
- "Impacts of Green New Deal energy plans on grid stability, costs, jobs, health, and climate in 143 countries" (Jacobson, Delucchi, Cameron, et al) Global warming, air pollution, and energy insecurity are three of the greatest problems facing humanity. To address these problems, we develop Green New Deal energy roadmaps for 143 countries.
- AIP's history of global warming science: impacts The American Institute of Physics has a fine history of the science of climate change. This link summarizes the history of impacts of climate change.
- An open letter to Steve Levitt
- CLIMATE ADAM Previously from the Science news staff at the podcast of Nature (“Nature Podcast”), the journal, now on YouTube, encouraging climate action through climate comedy.
- James Powell on sampling the climate consensus
- Skeptical Science
- "Getting to the Energy Future We Want," Dr Steven Chu
- Climate Change: A health emergency … New England Journal of Medicine Caren G. Solomon, M.D., M.P.H., and Regina C. LaRocque, M.D., M.P.H., January 17, 2019 N Engl J Med 2019; 380:209-211 DOI: 10.1056/NEJMp1817067
- History of discovering Global Warming From the American Institute of Physics.
- Tuft's Professor Kenneth Lang on the physical chemistry of the Greenhouse Effect
- "Warming Slowdown?" (part 2 of 2) The idea of a global warming slowdown or hiatus is critically examined, emphasizing the literature, the datasets, and means and methods for telling such. The second part.
- Non-linear feedbacks in climate (discussion of Bloch-Johnson, Pierrehumbert, Abbot paper) Discussion of http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/wol1/doi/10.1002/2015GL064240/abstract
- SOLAR PRODUCTION at Westwood Statistical Studios Generation charts for our home in Westwood, MA
- Spectra Energy exposed
- Agendaists Eli Rabett’s coining of a phrase
- Simple models of climate change
- Rabett Run Incisive analysis of climate science versus deliberate distraction
- “The Irrelevance of Saturation: Why Carbon Dioxide Matters'' (Bart Levenson)
- Solar Gardens Community Power
- The Carbon Cycle The Carbon Cycle, monitored by The Carbon Project
- Climate Change Denying Organizations
- Risk and Well-Being
- David Appell's early climate science
- Social Cost of Carbon
- Climate Change Reports By John and Mel Harte
- Anti—Anti-#ClimateEmergency Whether to declare a climate emergency is debatable. But some critics have gone way overboard.
- "A field guide to the climate clowns"
- Transitioning to fully renewable energy Professor Saul Griffiths talks to transitioning the customer journey, from a dependency upon fossil fuels to an electrified future
- Climate Communication Hassol, Somerville, Melillo, and Hussin site communicating climate to the public
- The HUMAN-caused greenhouse effect, in under 5 minutes, by Bill Nye
- On Thomas Edison and Solar Electric Power
- Jacobson WWS literature index
- Energy payback period for solar panels Considering everything, how long do solar panels have to operate to offset the energy used to produce them?
- The beach boondoggle Prof Rob Young on how owners of beach property are socializing their risks at costs to all of us, not the least being it seems coastal damage is less than it actually is
- RealClimate
- Wally Broecker on climate realism
- Wind sled Wind sled: A zero carbon way of exploring ice sheets
- Jacobson WWS literature index
- Climate impacts on retail and supply chains
- Climate change: Evidence and causes A project of the UK Royal Society: (1) Answers to key questions, (2) evidence and causes, and (3) a short guide to climate science
- Sir David King David King’s perspective on climate, and the next thousands of years for humanity
- "Climate science is setttled enough"
- Ricky Rood's “What would happen to climate if we (suddenly) stopped emitting GHGs today?
- Mathematics and Climate Research Network The Mathematics and Climate Research Network (MCRN) engages mathematicians to collaborating on the cryosphere, conceptual model validation, data assimilation, the electric grid, food systems, nonsmooth systems, paleoclimate, resilience, tipping points.
- Climate at a glance Current state of the climate, from NOAA
Archives
Jan Galkowski
Category Archives: state-space models
“Inferring change points in the spread of COVID-19 reveals the effectiveness of interventions”
J. Dehning et al., Science 369, eabb9789 (2020). DOI: 10.1126/science.abb9789 Source code and data. Note: This is not a classical approach to assessing strength of interventions using either counterfactuals or other kinds of causal inference. Accordingly, the argument for the … Continue reading
Posted in American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Statistical Association, Bayesian, Bayesian computational methods, causal inference, causation, changepoint detection, coronavirus, counterfactuals, COVID-19, epidemiology, SARS-CoV-2, state-space models, statistical series, time series
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What are the odds of net zero?
What’s the Question? A question was posed by a colleague a couple of months ago: What are the odds of a stock closing at the same price it opened? I found the question interesting, because, at first, it appeared to … Continue reading
The Rule of 135
From SingingBanana.
Repaired R code for Markov spatial simulation of hurricane tracks from historical trajectories
(Slight update, 28th June 2020.) I’m currently studying random walk and diffusion processes and their connections with random fields. I’m interested in this because at the core of dynamic linear models, Kalman filters, and state-space methods there is a random … Continue reading
Posted in American Meteorological Association, American Statistical Association, AMETSOC, Arthur Charpentier, atmosphere, diffusion, diffusion processes, dynamic linear models, dynamical systems, environment, geophysics, hurricanes, Kalman filter, Kerry Emanuel, Lévy flights, Lorenz, Markov chain random fields, mathematics, mathematics education, maths, MCMC, mesh models, meteorological models, meteorology, model-free forecasting, Monte Carlo Statistical Methods, numerical analysis, numerical software, oceanography, open data, open source scientific software, physics, random walk processes, random walks, science, spatial statistics, state-space models, statistical dependence, statistics, stochastic algorithms, stochastics, time series
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A model of an electrical grid: A vision
Many people seem to view the electrical grid of the future being much like the present one. I think a lot about networks, because of my job. And I especially think a lot about network topologies, although primarily concerning the … Continue reading
Posted in abstraction, American Meteorological Association, anomaly detection, Anthropocene, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, BNEF, Boston, bridge to somewhere, Buckminster Fuller, Canettes Blues Band, clean disruption, climate business, climate economics, complex systems, corporate supply chains, decentralized electric power generation, decentralized energy, demand-side solutions, differential equations, distributed generation, efficiency, EIA, electricity, electricity markets, energy, energy reduction, energy storage, energy utilities, engineering, extended supply chains, green tech, grid defection, Hermann Scheer, Hyper Anthropocene, investment in wind and solar energy, ISO-NE, Kalman filter, kriging, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, leaving fossil fuels in the ground, Lenny Smith, local generation, marginal energy sources, Massachusetts Clean Energy Center, Mathematics and Climate Research Network, mesh models, meteorology, microgrids, networks, New England, New York State, open data, organizational failures, pipelines, planning, prediction markets, public utility commissions, PUCs, rate of return regulation, rationality, reason, reasonableness, regime shifts, regulatory capture, resiliency, risk, Sankey diagram, smart data, solar domination, solar energy, solar power, Spaceship Earth, spatial statistics, state-space models, statistical dependence, statistics, stochastic algorithms, stochastics, stranded assets, supply chains, sustainability, the energy of the people, the green century, the value of financial assets, thermodynamics, time series, Tony Seba, utility company death spiral, wave equations, wind energy, wind power, zero carbon
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On Smart Data
One of the things I find surprising, if not astonishing, is that in the rush to embrace Big Data, a lot of learning and statistical technique has been left apparently discarded along the way. I’m hardly the first to point … Continue reading
Posted in Akaike Information Criterion, Bayes, Bayesian, Bayesian inversion, big data, bigmemory package for R, changepoint detection, data science, data streams, dlm package, dynamic generalized linear models, dynamic linear models, dynamical systems, Generalize Additive Models, generalized linear models, information theoretic statistics, Kalman filter, linear algebra, logistic regression, machine learning, Markov Chain Monte Carlo, mathematics, mathematics education, maths, maximum likelihood, MCMC, Monte Carlo Statistical Methods, multivariate statistics, numerical analysis, numerical software, numerics, quantitative biology, quantitative ecology, rationality, reasonableness, sampling, smart data, state-space models, statistical dependence, statistics, the right to know, time series
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Six cases of models
The previous post included an attempt to explain land surface temperatures as estimated by the BEST project using a dynamic linear model including regressions on both quarterly CO2 concentrations and ocean heat content. The idea was to check the explanatory … Continue reading
Posted in AMETSOC, anemic data, Anthropocene, astrophysics, Bayesian, Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project, BEST, carbon dioxide, climate, climate change, climate data, climate disruption, climate models, dlm package, dynamic linear models, dynamical systems, environment, fossil fuels, geophysics, Giovanni Petris, global warming, greenhouse gases, Hyper Anthropocene, information theoretic statistics, maths, maximum likelihood, meteorology, model comparison, numerical software, Patrizia Campagnoli, Rauch-Tung-Striebel, Sonia Petrone, state-space models, stochastic algorithms, stochastic search, SVD, time series
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Cory Lesmeister’s treatment of Simson’s Paradox (at “Fear and Loathing in Data Science”)
(Updated 2016-05-08, to provide reference for plateaus of ML functions in vicinity of MLE.) Simpson’s Paradox is one of those phenomena of data which really give Statistics a substance and a role, beyond the roles it inherits from, say, theoretical … Continue reading
Posted in Akaike Information Criterion, approximate Bayesian computation, Bayes, Bayesian, evidence, Frequentist, games of chance, information theoretic statistics, Kalman filter, likelihood-free, mathematics, maths, maximum likelihood, Monte Carlo Statistical Methods, probabilistic programming, rationality, Rauch-Tung-Striebel, Simpson's Paradox, state-space models, statistical dependence, statistics, stochastics
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high dimension Metropolis-Hastings algorithms
If attempting to simulate from a multivariate standard normal distribution in a large dimension, when starting from the mode of the target, i.e., its mean γ, leaving the mode γis extremely unlikely, given the huge drop between the value of the density at the mode γ and at likely realisations Continue reading
Posted in Bayes, Bayesian, Bayesian inversion, boosting, chance, Christian Robert, computation, ensembles, Gibbs Sampling, James Spall, Jerome Friedman, Markov Chain Monte Carlo, mathematics, maths, MCMC, Monte Carlo Statistical Methods, multivariate statistics, numerical software, numerics, optimization, reasonableness, Robert Schapire, SPSA, state-space models, statistics, stochastic algorithms, stochastic search, stochastics, Yoav Freund
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Generating supports for classification rules in black box regression models
Inspired by the extensive and excellent work in approximate Bayesian computation (see also), especially that done by Professors Christian Robert and colleagues (see also), and Professor Simon Wood (see also), it occurred to me that the complaints regarding lack of … Continue reading
Posted in approximate Bayesian computation, Bayes, Bayesian, Bayesian inversion, generalized linear models, machine learning, numerical analysis, numerical software, probabilistic programming, rationality, reasonableness, state-space models, statistics, stochastic algorithms, stochastic search, stochastics, support of black boxes
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After the Decade of Dithering, the Deadly Twenties
In a recent post, after reviewing the extreme Arctic warming event of late 2015, Professor John Baez quotes an earlier interview with Dr Gregory Benford, who is arguing for a geoengineering effort to restore the frozen Arctic. I do not … Continue reading
Posted in adaptation, AMOC, Arctic, chance, changepoint detection, climate, climate change, climate disruption, critical slowing down, ecology, engineering, geoengineering, global warming, greenhouse gases, Hyper Anthropocene, ignorance, James Hansen, MIchael Mann, mitigation, oceanography, physics, politics, rationality, reasonableness, regime shifts, science, science education, state-space models, statistics, the right to know, thermohaline circulation, time series
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dynamic linear model applied to sea-level-rise anomalies
I spent much of the data working up a function for level+trend dynamic linear modeling based upon the dlm package by Petris, Petrone, and Campagnoli, while trying some calculations and code for regime shift detection. One of the test cases … Continue reading
Posted in Bayesian, citizen science, climate change, climate data, climate disruption, dynamic linear models, floods, forecasting, Frequentist, global warming, icesheets, information theoretic statistics, Kalman filter, meteorology, open data, sea level rise, state-space models, statistics, time series
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Thoughts on “Regime Shift?”
John Baez at The Azimuth Project opened a discussion on the recent paper by Reid, et al Philip C. Reid et al, Global impacts of the 1980s regime shift on the Earth’s climate and systems, Global Change Biology, 2015. I … Continue reading
Southern Oscillation (SOI) correlated with Outgoing Longwave Radiation (OLR)
To the climate community this is nothing at all new, but I spotted these time series today and thought they would make a nice exhibit on how something people have direct control over, greenhouse gas emissions, affect a “teleconnection mechanism” … Continue reading
Posted in AMETSOC, bifurcations, carbon dioxide, climate, climate change, climate disruption, climate models, Dan Satterfield, differential equations, dynamic linear models, dynamical systems, ENSO, environment, forecasting, generalized linear models, geophysics, global warming, greenhouse gases, IPCC, Mathematica, mathematics, maths, meteorology, NCAR, NOAA, numerical software, oceanography, open data, physics, population biology, Principles of Planetary Climate, rationality, reasonableness, science, Spaceship Earth, state-space models, thermodynamics, time series
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Southern New England Meteorology Conference, 24th October 2015
I attending the 2015 edition of the Southern New England Meteorology Conference in Milton, MA, near the Blue Hill, and its Blue Hill Climatological Observatory, of which I am a member as we as of the American Meteorological Society. I … Continue reading
Posted in Anthropocene, capricious gods, climate, Dan Satterfield, dynamical systems, ensembles, ENSO, environment, floods, forecasting, geophysics, Hyper Anthropocene, information theoretic statistics, mesh models, meteorology, model comparison, NCAR, NOAA, nor'easters, oceanography, probability, science, spatial statistics, state-space models, statistics, stochastic algorithms, stochastic search, stochastics, time series
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STUFF IN PROGRESS
It’s a good time to reconnoiter and review the things I have in progress and are planned, both as a teaser, and as a promise. I am currently working the following technical projects, entirely on my personal time outside of … Continue reading
Posted in numerical analysis, planning, R, rationality, reasonableness, state-space models, statistics
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Your future: Antarctica, in detail
Climate and geophysical accuracy demands fine modeling grids, and very large supercomputers. The best and biggest supercomputers have not been available for climate work, until recently. Watch how results differ if fine meshes and big supercomputers are used. Why haven’t … Continue reading
Posted in Antarctica, Anthropocene, bridge to nowhere, climate, climate change, climate disruption, climate zombies, disingenuity, ecology, ensembles, forecasting, geophysics, global warming, Hyper Anthropocene, ignorance, IPCC, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, LBNL, living shorelines, mathematics, mathematics education, maths, mesh models, meteorology, multivariate statistics, numerical software, optimization, physics, rationality, reasonableness, risk, science, science education, sea level rise, spatial statistics, state-space models, statistics, stochastic algorithms, stochastics, supercomputers, temporal myopia, the right to know, thermodynamics, time series, University of California Berkeley, WAIS
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SCIENCE OF DOOM takes on assessing zero Carbon power and a zero Carbon grid
Updated, 2127 EDT, 10th August 2015 The blog, Science of Doom, has taken on a new thread discussing the technical feasibilities and problems associated with building out zero Carbon energy in the context of an electric grid. As such, it … Continue reading
Posted in adaptation, Anthropocene, clean disruption, climate data, climate disruption, conservation, consumption, decentralized electric power generation, decentralized energy, demand-side solutions, destructive economic development, dynamic linear models, dynamical systems, economics, efficiency, energy, energy reduction, engineering, environment, exponential growth, forecasting, fossil fuel divestment, global warming, Hyper Anthropocene, investing, investment in wind and solar energy, microgrids, open data, optimization, prediction, rationality, reasonableness, risk, solar power, state-space models, stochastics, sustainability, the right to know, time series, wind power, Wordpress, zero carbon
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Comprehensive and compact tutorial on Petris’ DLM package in R; with an update about Helske’s KFAS
A blogger named Lalas produced on Quantitative Thoughts a very comprehensive and compact tutorial on the R package dlm by Petris. I use dlm a lot. Unfortunately, Lalas does not give details on how the SVD is used. They do … Continue reading
Posted in Bayes, Bayesian, dynamic linear models, dynamical systems, forecasting, Kalman filter, mathematics, maths, multivariate statistics, numerical software, open source scientific software, prediction, R, Rauch-Tung-Striebel, state-space models, statistics, stochastic algorithms, SVD, time series
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Why decentralized electrical power has to win, no matter what Elon Musk says, and utilities are doomed
Posted in bridge to nowhere, carbon dioxide, Carbon Tax, citizenship, clean disruption, climate, climate change, climate disruption, climate education, compassion, conservation, consumption, decentralized electric power generation, decentralized energy, demand-side solutions, diffusion processes, dynamical systems, ecology, economics, efficiency, energy, energy reduction, engineering, environment, ethics, exponential growth, forecasting, fossil fuel divestment, geophysics, global warming, investing, investment in wind and solar energy, living shorelines, mass transit, mathematics education, maths, meteorology, microgrids, natural gas, NCAR, NOAA, nor'easters, obfuscating data, oceanography, open data, optimization, physics, politics, population biology, Principles of Planetary Climate, rationality, Ray Pierrehumbert, reasonableness, reproducible research, risk, science, science education, scientific publishing, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, solar power, state-space models, statistics, temporal myopia, testing, the right to know, time series, wind power, zero carbon
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On the Climate Club
But if the other advanced nations had a stick — a tariff of 4 percent on the imports from countries not in the “climate club” — the cost-benefit calculation for the United States would flip. Not participating in the club … Continue reading
Posted in citizenship, civilization, climate, climate change, climate disruption, climate education, ecology, economics, education, environment, ethics, geophysics, global warming, humanism, investing, investment in wind and solar energy, IPCC, mathematics, mathematics education, maths, meteorology, NASA, NCAR, NOAA, open data, open source scientific software, politics, rationality, reasonableness, risk, science, science education, sociology, state-space models, statistics, stochastic search, stochastics, sustainability, temporal myopia, time series, transparency, Unitarian Universalism, UU Humanists, wind power, zero carbon
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The CWSLab workflow tool: an experiment in community code development
Posted in climate, climate education, climate models, computation, differential equations, dynamical systems, environment, forecasting, geophysics, global warming, IPCC, mathematics, mathematics education, maths, meteorology, model comparison, NCAR, oceanography, open source scientific software, physics, Principles of Planetary Climate, Python 3, rationality, reasonableness, science, science education, state-space models, statistics, time series, transparency
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A promise forward …
I’ve made a commitment at Google Plus to detail the implications of underestimated rainfall in terms of precipitation risk. I’m planning to tie this up with my informal work on the Town of Sharon’s water supply, in Sharon, MA. Update, … Continue reading
Dynamic Linear Models package, dlmodeler
I’m checking out the dlmodeler package in R for a work project. It is accompanied by textbooks, G. Petris, S. Petrone, P. Campagnoli, Dynamic Linear Models with R, Springer, 2009 and J. Durbin, S. J. Koopman, Time Series Analysis by … Continue reading

